PreEmptive's Dotfuscator Community Edition ships with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003

New Version of Dotfuscator Improves Code Security; Free Upgrade Available Online

San Francisco, CA - April 24, 2003

PreEmptive Solutions, the leader in code security and compaction development tools announced today the availability of PreEmptive's Dotfuscator Community Edition included with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. By providing a code security tool in the box, PreEmptive and Microsoft Corp. will provide developers writing code to run on the .NET Framework with an extra layer of protection against reverse engineering, or decompilation.

The Dotfuscator Community Edition provides features, such as PreEmptive's patented Overload-InductionTM renaming technology, that make it virtually impossible to reconstruct the source code from a compiled application because the original overloading relationships are destroyed.

"We are very excited about the launch of Visual Studio .NET 2003," says Gabriel Torok, president of PreEmptive Solutions. "As people begin to deploy applications on Visual Studio .NET 2003, they will appreciate the fact that Microsoft has already thought about code security and have been proactive by providing a solution in the box that helps deliver the security developers and corporations demand."

Developers can easily upgrade to Dotfuscator Professional Edition for an added level of protection and size reduction with advanced features such as Control Flow Obfuscation, Compaction, String Encryption, Enhanced Overload Induction and Incremental Obfuscation. Designed to provide even greater protection and to create the most compact and efficient .NET Framework-based applications, Dotfuscator Professional offers the following features: 

• Control Flow Obfuscation provides a strong form of protection that creates very confusing code (to the human or decompiler) while still maintaining complete execution consistency and code verification. 

• Compaction works by extracting unused portions of program code (from the developer's own code, or third-party libraries) to deliver the trimmest executable possible. In addition to improving performance, size reduction of code is crucial in distributed and .NET Compact Framework-based applications. 

• String Encryption helps to hide facts about a program that are discoverable by searching for internal strings. If a hacker wants to get into a developer's code, the developer does not blindly start searching renamed types. He or she probably does a search on "Invalid License Key," which points him or her right to the type where license handling is performed. String Encryption raises the bar for uncovering developer secrets. 

• Enhanced Overload Induction extends Overload-InductionTM by allowing a method's return type to be used as a criterion in determining method uniqueness and therefore it can allow up to 15 percent more redundancy in method renames. In addition, since overloading on return type is typically not allowed in source languages such as Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Visual Basic .NET, this feature further hinders decompilers. 

• Incremental Obfuscation works by using input from a previous run to mimic its previous renaming scheme. That way, developers can issue just the patched modules to their customers.

"The delivery of Visual Studio .NET 2003 is a milestone in our relationship with PreEmptive Solutions," said David Lazar, director for the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft. "Together PreEmptive's Dotfuscator and Visual Studio .NET 2003 deliver solid protection for commercial and enterprise applications, while providing a natural path for developers to receive added protection and size reduction provided by an upgrade to PreEmptive's Dotfuscator professional version."

In terms of size reduction, the Professional Edition's compaction feature reduces the size of executables by removing unused code. As demand grows for applications that have a networked/distributed component or that are written for embedded systems, size reduction increases in importance. In addition, since size reduction in the executable directly affects the size reduction of individual types and, subsequently, individual objects, compacted programs use less memory. 

Pricing and availability:
Dotfuscator Community Edition 1.1 is included free and automatically installed as part of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. An upgrade to Dotfuscator Community Edition 1.2 is available for free to all Visual Studio .NET 2003 customers. This version provides some ease of use improvements and more comprehensive support for a wide array of applications.

Dotfuscator Professional Edition includes advanced features that provide strong code protection and makes .NET Framework-based applications as small and efficient as they can be; it is priced from $1,495. More information can be found at www.preemptive.com 

About PreEmptive Solutions:
Founded in 1995, PreEmptive Solutions is the leading provider of advanced Java and .Net code security tools giving unprecedented protection, optimization and size reduction. PreEmptive's DotfuscatorTM and DashOTM Family of Products help secure and compact .NET and Java code. For further information, visit www.preemptive.com or call 216-732-5895. 

Press Contact:
Sebastian Holst
SVP, Sales and Marketing
PreEmptive Solutions
Direct +1 440 484 2243
solutions@preemptive.com